Reflecting the methodological shift in the reading of biblical texts that has evolved over some years, the focus is on understanding the New Testament message and not on the origins and prehistory of the text. The contribution of other disciplines such as communication science, linguistics, as well as literary and sociological studies to biblical exegesis also receives thorough attention. The fifteen chapters move from theory to the process of explaining and understanding texts, including contributions on hermeneutics, textual and redaction criticism, discourse analysis, narrative criticism, reception criticism, speech act analysis and rhetorical criticism and concludes with a chapter on Bible translation studies. Numerous diagrams and examples are included to illustrate theoretical concepts and extensive bibliographies refer the reader to recent as well as classic publications on the various topics.The contributors are, in addition to our editor, South African academics that have published internationally on New Testament exegesis: Bernard Lategan, Johannes Vorster, Herman du Toit, G.J.A. Jordaan, Andries van Aarde, Jan van der Watt, Stephan Joubert, Bernard Combrink, Eugene Botha and John Roberts.